Firefly drabbles
by Haiza Tyri
Summary: A series of 100-word stories about all kinds of Firefly subjects. Always clean in language and content and entirely non-slash but may involve intense psychological situations
1. In Mourning

**Author's note: Simon is my favorite Firefly character. **

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><p><em>In Mourning<em>

Simon Tam was in mourning. He had lost his sister.

It took him a long time to recognize this, when she was always before him, disrupting his life, enchanting and frightening everyone around her. But the River he knew was gone and would never return. His little genius best friend had died, and in her place he had an alien creature he did not know.

Alone at night, he mourned his sister quietly, but during the day he never showed her any regret, for he could not love the alien creature any less than he had loved his best friend.


	2. In All Honesty

_In All Honesty_

The first time he hears about it is when he and Regan have been arrested for aiding and abetting their outlaw son in the kidnapping of their fugitive daughter.

The first thing he thinks is, _Simon, what have you done? Why couldn't you just be happy with your career?_

The first thing he feels is anger at Simon for ruining their lives. That boy never had been content with enough. He never had believed his father's statements of fact or obeyed his authority. He always had to push beyond the walls established for society's safety, to see what was there.

...

The first time it occurs to him to wonder why running away from school should be considered treason, he begins to be honest with himself.

The first thing he thinks is, _River, what did they do to you? Why should you have to run away?_

The first thing he feels is shame that he was so concerned with retaining his family's social position that he chose to be blind to what Simon was trying to tell him and, by inaction, to sacrifice River to the gods of Authority and This Sort Of Thing Doesn't Really Happen In A Civilized Society.


	3. In Beauty

_In Beauty_

Sometimes half-remembered scraps of poetry flitted across Mal's mind, as if to remind him that once he'd been as educated as the next man. That was why the first time he saw Inara Serra he found himself thinking, _She walks in beauty like the night, of cloudless climes and starry skies, and all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes._ Or something like that. He wouldn't be caught dead knowing it in real poetry form. He couldn't even be said to be _thinking_ it. It was just there in his head. Not his fault.


	4. In Love

_In Love_

The thing was, Kaylee was such a _simple_ girl. Not stupid by any means, but there was something so simple and straightforward about her, not the sort of girl Simon would ever have been attracted to, he'd have thought. Inara Serra was the sort of woman he would once have found on his arm, not little Kaywinnit Lee Frye. But Inara hadn't looked at him twice, and he hadn't looked at her. Instead Kaylee burst into his world like fireworks—no, like a sunrise. She was unlike anything he had ever known, and that had taken some getting used to.


	5. In Error

_In Error_

Zoë knew the new pilot was a bad idea. Mal was a perfectly adequate pilot, and this madcap fellow was sure to disrupt discipline aboard ship. How could he possibly fit into Mal and Zoë's world? He was a mistake.

When he saved their lives for the first time of many with maneuvers Mal could never do, she knew she was wrong. When she found herself laughing until she cried at one of his antics, she knew what their lives had been missing. Mal could be funny, but he was not lighthearted. Wash made everything less deadly serious, more fun.


	6. In a Mirror Darkly

_In a Mirror Darkly_

_Merciful Lord Jesus, let me live until they come._

So finally the death he deserved had come. By rights he should have received it at the hands of Alliance soldiers twelve years ago. Instead inexplicable mercy had intervened. Oh, it had taken ten years in an abbey to feel that he had been forgiven, that the slate had been wiped clean of all his crimes. Ten years of nightmares, of begging for the forgiveness he knew he had already received and could hardly believe was his, of slowly letting the guilt be washed away and replaced with peace and love.

...

Now he had come at last to death. And instead of being punishment for his sins, death would be a new gift, a further evidence of mercy, for he would step from this dim world of pain and hardship into a world of goodness and beauty where, finally, he would see the One who was kind to him. He smiled through his pain. Little River—that remarkable child—unable to accept what didn't suit the intellectual world of logic—he pitied her for that. Perhaps his death would help her see beyond.

Shepherd Book smiled again. He heard _Serenity_ coming.

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><p><strong>Author's note: If any of my Book facts are wrong, it is because I have not yet read the graphic novel about him.<strong>


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